Artisanal California Cheeses

[ludja]

I had the good fortune of being up at Pt. Reyes last weekend for a wonderful hike. The added bonus of hiking up there is the de rigeur stop off at Tomales Bay Foods to peruse the cheese offerings of the Cowgirl Creamery and many of the other cheeses they sell, some from smaller Sonoma or Marin producers that may not have their own retail outlet.

I had a great new cheese! A soft triple creme called Piccolo from Soyoung Scanlan at Andante Dairy. It was absolutely magnificent--unctious texture and great complex flavor. Here is a link to Andante Dairy. Her cheeses are also available each Saturday at the SF Ferry Market.

So far, I haven't taken enough advantage of all the great California cheese we have available here but am determined to correct that deficiency...

Help spread the word and share your experiences here with CA cheeses.

For people outside of CA, it would be interesting to hear what cheeses are making it out of the state. For instance, I heard that the good folks of Philly have CowGirl's RedHawk available at Di Bruno Brothers...

edited to add: For those local or visiting California, here's a recent thread re: visiting small cheese producers in California.

[rmockler]

I had the good fortune of being up at Pt. Reyes last weekend for a wonderful hike.  The added bonus of hiking up there is the de rigeur stop off at Tomales Bay Foods to peruse the cheese offerings of the Cowgirl Creamery and many of the other cheeses they sell, some from smaller Sonoma or Marin producers that may not have their own retail outlet.

I had a great new cheese!  A soft triple creme called Piccolo from Soyoung Scanlan at Andante Dairy.  It was absolutely magnificent--unctious texture and great complex flavor.  Here is a link to Andante Dairy.  Her cheeses are also available each Saturday at the SF Ferry Market.

So far, I haven't taken enough advantage of all the great California cheese we have available here but am determined to correct that deficiency...

Help spread the word and share your experiences here with CA cheeses.

For people outside of CA, it would be interesting to hear what cheeses are making it out of the state.  For instance, I heard that the good folks of Philly have CowGirl's RedHawk available at Di Bruno Brothers...

edited to add:  For those local or visiting California, here's a recent thread re: visiting small cheese producers in California.

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We in Seattle have access to many grand CA cheeses, and just enjoyed the first Seattle Cheese Festival. IN addition to the usual suspects (Cowgirl, Cypress Grove, etc ... not that I'm complaining they are usual, mind you) we got to sample and buy many more. Highlights: Point Reyes (regularly seen in restaurants here, but harder to find retail) and . . truly grand .. some of Redwood Hill Farms' chevres -- I'm in theory working, so can't go look at which one was my favorite, but oh, such joy!

My wife, more of a cheddared cheese lover, also got some Fiscalini (which we have purchased at Whole Foods, too), which also is a winner.

There were more, but those pop to mind --- highly recommend all of them.

[amytraverso]

I'm a big fan of Andante, too, ludja. And last week I tried a new cheese from Cypress Grove called Purple Haze. Fantastic! It's a young chevre flavored with lavender and fennel pollen. The sweet herbs balance that goaty tang, so it's very mild and creamy and makes a great dessert drizzled with lavender honey and walnuts (toasted or candied).

Amy

Edited May 24, 2005 by amytraverso (log)

[SuzySushi]

Marin French Cheese Co.'s Rouge et Noir brand triple-crème Brie bested French competitors to win the top cheese award this spring at the International Food and Drink Exhibition in London. We get Rouge et Noir Brie and Camembert at our local Safeway (in the suburbs in Hawaii). Montchevré-Betin's award-winning California goat cheeses also make it over to our local market.

[ludja]

Ooh, some interesting tips already.

The Cypress Grove Purple Haze sounds very interesting Amy... and I have wanted to try the Rouge et Noir as well. The selection in Hawaii and Seattle does sound promising too, it's nice to see wider distribution.

I know there have to be a lot of other opinions out there from CA folks and elsewhere; hopefully we'll hear from more people.

I'll definately report back after my next purchase...

Edited May 26, 2005 by ludja (log)

[Jensen]

I served the Rouge et Noir brie at my book club breakfast a few weeks ago. Even though I had it at room temperature, it wasn't as soft as I'd hoped for. (Full disclosure: I am a cheese heathen. I know nothing about how any particular type of cheese should be.)

However, it wasn't their triple-cream (although I did look at that package with intense longing) and it hasn't stopped me from planning a "field trip" to the Marin French Cheese factory next week.

[drfokos]

This year I've done a lot of cheese tasting -- many perfectly aged cheeses flown if from Artisnal Cheese Company in New York -- yum!!

One of the most profound lessons to come from our cheese and wine parties is that I really prefer sweet dessert wines (e.g. icewein, moscato, etc.) or port with many of the cheeses I love. Just as an aside, on a whim I picked up a bottle of 2001 Scrapona Moscato D'Asti. This delightful wine is medium sweet, low in alcohol (5.5%) with a slight spritz -- perfect for sunny summer afternoons!

I've been dying to try the cheeses from Adante, but they will no longer ship retail orders (wholesale orders only) and I live in San Diego, so I can't stop by the farmer's markets either.

However, I love the Cypress Grove Purple Haze which I have been enjoying with lavendar honey and also with a purple basil jelly.

David

[Andrew Fenton]

Here's a recent CA cheese anecdote. I was at a party; didn't know many people there, but they were serving lots of good food, including a beautiful, gigantic hunk of Humboldt Fog. It was one of the most gorgeous things I've ever seen: probably $40 worth of oozing, ashy goodness. I was all ready to dive in when I noticed... no crackers. It was terrible: like being stuck in an O. Henry story or something.

Didn't stop me from eating it, though. Yum.

[Jensen]

Last week, my friend and I went on a field trip to Petaluma and Sonoma to visit as many cheesemakers as we could find.

We started out at Marin French Cheese where we took an abbreviated tour of the facility. I left with a small round of Petit Dejeuner, a small round of their blue cheese, and a somewhat larger round of Yellow Buck Chevre.

The chevre was, in fact, a blended cheese. Apparently, they'd had a wee mix-up with their milk deliveries and so some goat's milk was mixed up with some cow's milk. It was really very good.

Since we had time, we decided to head to Sonoma to see if we could find more cheese. Although we did find The Cheesemaker's Daughter rather quickly, we didn't buy anything there. Our reasoning was that we were on a quest for local cheeses and, although the cheeses offered there looked incredible, they weren't local.

I knew there was The Cheese Factory in Sonoma as well as Vella Cheese. Of course, we found The Cheese Factory right away and, even though we were disappointed to have to settle for what was obviously a large-scale operation, we still bought a piece of cheese each. I picked up a small chunk of Pepato jack cheese.

After making a complete circle of the town square, there was still no Vella Cheese. Ah, but I did find a phone booth with a phone book! It took just a minute to find their address and then to orient ourselves as to which direction that might be.

At Vella Cheese, we tried a number of different flavours and, much to our chagrin, saw cheeses similar to the ones that we had just bought at The Cheese Factory. We would have much rathered purchased from Vella but I guess we'll have to wait until next time...

As it was, I picked up a wedge of their Toma cheese, a piece of their white cheddar (complete with little calcium crystals...a sign for me that I'm sure to love that cheddar!), and a wedge of aged dry Jack cheese.

With all that cheese now in my shopping bag, I was happy to have learned at Marin French that one can freeze cheese. So, the two small rounds from Marin French are aging in my fridge (they were still fairly young), the Yellow Buck is awaiting consumption, the Toma is completely gone, and the rest is in the freezer.

As for the Toma, I am an instant fan. What a superb cheese for melting on things!